"I felt happy, it was a big relief because Atlanta was the team that put me out, that put me out for a while," Thomas said Thursday. "So for me it was just a payback thing. I wanted to get back at that team because they really hurt me in the beginning of the season. They put me out for a long period of time, but I got my opportunities to come back and show them what I can do. For them to remember me, like, 'hey, you might have put me out in the beginning, but I'm back.'"

The severe ankle twist Thomas suffered late in the Saints' overtime loss to the Falcons on Sept. 26 challenged several physicians' diagnostic skills and defied traditional recovery timetables. Coach Sean Payton and Thomas insisted the injury was not a high-ankle sprain, an ailment with notoriously lingering affects, but there was disagreement over whether there was a tear inside the swollen and painful joint. Whatever the injury, it sidelined the Saints' two-time leading rusher for nine games, and Thomas later expressed regret he tried to come back on it early.

All of that appeared to be history Monday night. But it was Thomas' personal health assessment Thursday that might offer more serious food for future opponents' thoughts than the Atlanta game video.

"I definitely wanted to show everybody what I could bring to the table, because, you know, it's been a while," Thomas said. "So I'm just trying to get back into my rhythm, the couple of games before I was just getting into rhythm. I felt like, I'll say that I wasn't really 'in' rhythm that much. I was just getting back used to the game because I'd been out for a while."

Thomas accounted for 102 yards. He carried 19 times for 63 yards and caught seven passes for 39 yards. He turned a flick pass from quarterback Drew Brees into a 22-yard gain on the team's critical 90-yard touchdown drive that put New Orleans ahead 17-14. Then, after the Falcons chose to punt the ball with less than three minutes remaining, Thomas salted away the victory by vaulting over a dog pile on third-and-1 for three yards.

Revenge may be a dish best served cold, but Thomas said he's just getting hot.

"This Monday night game, this past game, I think I showed people that, hey, I'm close to being back. I feel that I'm not back, but I'm close to being back to 100 percent," he said. "You see my ankle? I'm wearing a big boot on my ankle, man. I'm not used to that. That takes a couple of points off of me. But pretty soon I'll be off of it, hopefully, get that groove going completely, and I'll be ready to go. I'll be like my old self."

For many Saints fans, Thomas' old self is just fine, representing as it does his picking up the first down in overtime during the NFC championship game, or darting through the Colts' secondary en route to the end zone on a 16-yard scoring pass that gave New Orleans its first lead in Super Bowl XLIV.

But this season did not pick up for Thomas where the last one left off. His season was clouded by a contract dispute that held him out of offseason team activities. Whether it reflected the team's long-term plans for Thomas, or was simply a short-term hardball negotiating stance, the team's leading rusher from its championship season was given a stark choice: sign the $1.7 million, one-year contract, or sit out in your prime. Thomas thus entered the campaign with what he and his agent considered a less-than-market-value deal.

Thomas' situation was complicated by the expiration of the NFL's collective bargaining agreement with the players' union, a demise that meant Thomas fell into the restricted free agent category.

Saints General Manager Mickey Loomis said there are no active contract negotiations. When the sides were apart last summer, Loomis said he grasped the sensitive dichotomy between the personal nature of the contract for a player and the business nature of the contract for the franchise. Although he made no concrete statements about where he saw Thomas' future with New Orleans, he did say he hoped a contract could be worked out and that the organization appreciated Thomas' reporting to camp without an inked deal in force.

As if those outside issues weren't enough, on the first full-tackle play of training camp Thomas went down with a nicked wrist. He bounced back from that and carried the ball 19 times on opening night against Minnesota. But he injured the ankle two weeks later, and as the recovery dragged on a report surfaced on Fox Sports that Payton was annoyed by Thomas' lagging injury. The coach, Fox's Jay Glazer said, believed his star back was dogging it.

Payton never flatly refuted that report, but he did not appear to give it much respect, either. And Thomas maintained he never felt such a vibe; that no such opinion was ever voiced to him by Payton or any Saints executives. His agent, Lamont Smith, said the very idea his client was dogging it was absurd, and Thursday night Smith said he believes Thomas would like to stay with New Orleans.

"From Pierre's perspective, I think his heart is in New Orleans," Smith said. "He was champing at the bit to get back on the field very quickly and he took it very personally when they were struggling, so I know his heart is there."

Smith confirmed that no contract discussions have occurred. There are various schools of thought about how to proceed with contract issues while a collective bargaining agreement is in abeyance, but Smith said he has deduced from the Saints' silence that the team is going to wait until a new labor deal is in place before committing to new contracts.

Still, Thomas and Smith exchanged text messages after the Falcons game, in which his value to the Saints' offense was so apparent. Brees touched on that topic, too, noting that Thomas' ability to run and catch passes allows the Saints to mask their intent better than they did when he is out of the lineup.

"That's never in my thoughts," Thomas insisted when asked if Sunday's game against Tampa Bay could be his last with the Saints at the Superdome. "It's this game and the playoffs."

And this game, Thomas added, matters. The Buccaneers have an outside shot at the playoffs, and even when they were doormats they beat the eventual champions at the Superdome last season.

"You see a lot of improvements since last year," Thomas said. "They came in here last year and they beat us on our home field, so we have to be prepared for that because we can't have that again. So we're going to do whatever we have to do to be prepared and ready because we know it's not going to be an easy game. They're hungry for a win and looking for a win, so we'll have to do all we can to go out there and fight and get a 'W' for ourselves."